Sheil Kapadia

Philly.com

I suggest listening to the whole thing, but there are some excerpts I wanted to share here.

Everyone has an opinion on Donovan McNabb and the Eagles' future at quarterback. Simms is no different.

He offered what I thought was a fair assessment of McNabb - praising him for his strengths and criticizing him for his weaknesses.

But when asked specifically about the way the Eagles' season ended and the two losses to the Cowboys, Simms said the Birds had several other problems that are of greater concern than McNabb's play.

"I saw a football team that absolutely could not even get close to protecting their quarterback," Simms said. "... If that was Kevin Kolb, they’d be drafting another one right now because he would be dead."

One quick note from me here: I'm not sure it's fair to lump the two games together in terms of offensive line play. I thought the protection was much better in the Week 17 game than in the wild-card game.

Getting back to Simms, he added that he's a big McNabb supporter. He acknowledged McNabb's problems with accuracy, saying McNabb's "not a naturally-gifted thrower," but argued that he makes up for it with his play-making ability.

"There’s no doubt for a big-time pro quarterback, he misses more throws than any of the big-time quarterbacks, but he overcomes that with his strength," Simms said. "Because they let him throw enough, he ends up making up for it. He usually hits those big plays… there’s a give and take there."

When asked about Kolb, Simms said the Eagles coaches will know if he's capable of carrying the team forward at this point in his career.

"If they really believe he’s ready and he’s the guy, then they’re gonna pull the trigger on something with Donovan McNabb," Simms said. "But, boy, you better be sure because if it doesn’t work..."

I've stumbled upon some other interesting takes, links and rumors on McNabb, which I'll share Wednesday afternoon.

And if you're wondering what my stance is on the whole issue, I'll get to that later in the week too. I'm trying to come up with a unique way to present it.